


Breaking Records

by svana_vrika



Category: Free!
Genre: Brotherly Love, Brothers, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 22:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svana_vrika/pseuds/svana_vrika
Summary: Natsuya reflects on his relationship with Ikuya





	Breaking Records

**Author's Note:**

> Someone had asked for brotherly things with Ikuya and Natsuya on Tumblr and the next thing I knew I had this. My first attempt at either of these boys, but I like the feel of it... 
> 
> This story is an original work of fan-fiction. The Free! franchise and its characters, props and settings are the intellectual property of Masahiro Yokotani, Kyoto Animation and Animation Do. I just borrowed the lot for a few hundred words of entertainment. No copyright infringements are intended, and I will make no profit from their use.

Natsuya didn’t know why he and Ikuya continued to fall into the same bad patterns, but looking back, they _always_ had. Natsuya wanted to see the world at his little brother’s feet so badly and he’d come to believe at an early age that Ikuya would never truly shine if he wasn’t forced out of Natsuya’s shadow. He’d even sacrificed his own dream of taking on the world so that there would only be one Kirishima on the global swimming stage. And, no matter how many times he and Ikuya would clear the air between them and he’d think Ikuya understood, Ikuya would inevitably fall to the belief that he’d been abandoned. He would spiral until he broke under the mental pressure he felt to prove himself, they would come together again after and heal… “Like a broken record,” Natsuya muttered dryly. 

“Hm?” 

“Nothing.” Natsuya glanced down at the head on his shoulder, stroked his fingers through Ikuya’s hair again, smiled as he was taken back to Saturday morning cartoons and egg-and-toast breakfasts, an abandoned zabuton, Ikuya’s head in his lap instead as he finished off Ikuya’s crusts. 

“Mm.” 

Ikuya’s eyes shifted back to the fire in the irori and Natsuya’s followed. His lips curved up. He could hear their mom’s soft singing mingled in with the pops and crackles, and his eyes softened as he recalled how she’d teared up when she’d opened the door to him and Ikuya together when they’d come home for Ikuya’s winter break. They were together again, their little family; truly together now that it seemed the he and Ikuya had finally, _finally_ synched, and Natsuya’s expression grew determined as he recalled again what Nao had said about growing up and getting serious. He’d always have a bit of that wanderlust. It was part of who he was. But he was no longer running in search of his place. He’d found it in the finish he and Ikuya had reached together, in the hug, and tears, he and his little brother had shared. Ikuya shifted slightly and their shadows briefly flickered apart before uniting, becoming one beneath the light cast by the fire. Natsuya smiled. As it should be. As it should have been all along, but he could neither change the past nor deny the growth both he and Ikuya had gained because of it, so he threw that broken record away with the one he and Ikuya had destroyed together that day in the pool. He’d look forward, instead, to the ones he and his little brother would break, side by side, on the global stage.


End file.
